Senseless Killings in the City of Iqbal and Faiz
By Perwaiz Ahmad
Fullerton , CA
Sialkot, once a city of great pride for all Pakistanis because of iconic personalities like Dr Allama Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who were born on its soil, today stands divided and tormented after the very ugly, brutal, gruesome and despicable murder of two teenage boys less than a couple of weeks ago. Anyone with an iota of compassion and sympathy for any living thing is sure to have misty eyes if he/she sees the video clips of this horrific incident. This is the tipping point and justice must prevail at all costs otherwise Punjab will split by its own indifference to its citizens in the province.
President Truman’s famous words - “the buck stops here”- do not mean a thing for our leaders, be they PML-N or PPP, because they can get away with Senseless Sialkot Killings Senseless Sialkot Killings murder in the feudal system that we continue to embrace and that our immediate neighbor India got rid of it at its very inception in 1947. The bottom line is that they have become immune to loss of life, they simply don’t care, human life is just a dime a dozen for them. Murders on the streets and in homes all over Pakistan for petty theft have been rampant for decades and not a darn thing was done by previous and present government because it serves their hidden agenda: rule by fear. Millions live below poverty level while their jet-set life, their luxurious living accommodations remain second to none considering the fact that we are dependent on foreign aid to balance our fiscal budget year after year.
Today, we are witnessing what visionary Faiz wrote over forty years ago in his poem, “ Hum Deykhein Gay”( everybody should hear or read it), when a shoe (Taaj) was hurled at Zardari by a true patriot, Shamim Khan to show his anger and frustration with the reining government and the Opposition (PML-N) too. They have unwritten understanding that they will be the only two players in this musical chairs game of power sharing, punctuated by a few years of military rule.
What a travesty for a Muslim country that was once an envy of others and that today is standing alone - guilty as charged - because of absence of Rule of Law and rampant corruption for the last 40 years. It is an eye opener for all Pakistanis of things to come if the nation fails to take corrective measures now, such as banning leaders with a shameful past, stop being a chess piece to Saudi Arabia where a poor person gets hanged every week while the corrupt leaders around the world find a safe haven. Unless and until we start calling a spade a spade by punishing leaders for the wrongs committed, we will continue to go down the spiral towards self-destruction.
What General Ayub Khan did in 1969 by handing the government to another General, Yahya Khan, for a safe exit, Musharraf did the same - resigned under pressure, received a glorified exit out of the country leaving it in the hands of people with a shady past. Zia had no choice because he died in a plane crash, perhaps for exploiting the religion to stay in power for eleven years. Today, under the guise of democracy where anything goes, VIP culture to the nth degree, exorbitant expenditures in the President House, unheard of security measures, no transparency, fake degrees, lying under oath and defending corrupt practices is the norm as our PM campaigns for candidates with shameless credentials. It goes without saying that the government and the Opposition are protecting each other to save their ill-gotten wealth at the expense of the miserable state of affairs of millions of its citizens who are dying for lack of basic necessities. They refuse to learn lessons from Iran’s Ahmadinejad, who lives and eats simple despite enormous wealth in his country while his counterparts, PPP and PML-N leaders in Pakistan virtually live like kings. Our own Quaid forbade his staff from even drinking tea or smoking a cigar at government expenses let alone sumptuous meals that have become a routine and norm in the President House.
After 2.5 years it is safe to assume that PPP and Nawaz’s PML are peas of the same pod because it is very obvious that they have good understanding (wink, wink, nod, nod ) to protect each other’s interests (eating lavish dinners, millions in investment abroad and increasing by the hour) . They both love ultra luxurious living at the tax payer’s expense, off-springs being groomed in foreign countries to take charge when the need arises while delivering friendly opposition and empty rhetoric to keep the volcano of despair from erupting.
Despite the fact that PML-N is governing Punjab and was in the Center twice in the 1990’s, Southern Punjab is crying bloody murder and rightly so because the party has treated them like step- children all along for the last 20 years. Their demand to split Punjab (perhaps Sindh and Baluchistan too) into two or more provinces is a legitimate demand to bring equality and prosperity to all parts of the province. So what is so unique about Punjab except those who have been in power have a stranglehold on the province. The indifference shown by the elected leaders in the current situation (worst flood and deaths) and the recent murders of two boys is enough ground to put all these corrupt leaders out of business for good, strip these families of the loot that they have amassed to ensure that nobody has the courage to steal a penny from the national exchequer in the future.
I hope that the brutal murder of the two young lads, unprecedented in the history Sialkot, does not go in vain. Prayers alone will not help; we have to eradicate the bad apples that are selling our country piece by piece in exchange for personal power and for their dynasty in the making.
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